WasteWise

Logo

Inspiration

The inspiration for out product came to our minds as we were brainstorming ways that we could improve the community in simple ways. During this, we happen to be enjoying some snacks and by the time we were finished, we had no idea as to which bin we had to dispose of the wrapping in. It was here that it hit us, how many other time have people been unsure of how to dispose of something and defaulted to throwing it into the garbage.

What it does

To solve this problem, we came up with an AI, trained on thousands of images of waste which can accurately determine what disposal bin to use for an item, based solely on an uploaded image. It makes sure to use a concise and straightforward UI to save the most time.

How we built it

This project was built from the ground up using python and libraries like TensorFlow to train a neural network system with thousands of images of waste from an open-source database

Challenges we ran into

We ran into an inconsistency based on the operating system of the running program. Issues around this were due to path variable differences and environment variable changes across the 2 systems.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are extremely proud of the fact that we finished this project in the limited time that we had. It has been a struggle but by utilizing consistent effort, we got through it.

What we learned

Through this project, we learned how to solve various issues around the development of a neural network as well as its integration into a web app

What's next for Waste Wise

We as a team, strongly believe that Waste Wise is a viable solution to an existing problem that has been affecting people. As of now, we are considering continuing the project beyond the hackathon level, into a fully mobile pushed app in the market to assist sustainability initiatives across the world.